


Rose: Widen Your Social Circle

by Prim_the_Amazing



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Minor Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Minor Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam, Other Characters Are Mentioned, POV Rose Lalonde, but Rose and Karkat are the only ones who get actual screen time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 23:07:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5473910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You remember reading somewhere that it’s good when your romantic partner is your best friend, but it’s bad when they’re your only friend. Self-proclaimed expert therapist that you are, you think you should probably follow what you think of as good advice. </p><p>Rose and Karkat hang out, the fanfiction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rose: Widen Your Social Circle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reallyQuantum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reallyQuantum/gifts).



You remember reading somewhere that it’s good when your romantic partner is your best friend, but it’s bad when they’re your only friend. Self-proclaimed expert therapist that you are, you think you should probably follow what you think of as good advice. So, you declare (internally, to yourself) that it is finally time to spend time with someone that is not your beautiful, darling, perfect Kanaya. She is perfectly understanding.

For reasons that totally are not related to that mortifying incident with the wine, you decide not to approach Vriska with overtures of friendship. And for reasons that are definitely not related to her being glued to Vriska’s hip, you conclude that Terezi is sadly enough just not prime friendship material. The vent clown is right out. You have not ever heard him say anything but ‘honk’ anyways, which is oddly disturbing. Dave is of course very important to you, but you think that maybe you should try branching out a little from beyond the family, acquire new friends. You teased him a little bit about Karkat yesterday anyways.

Ah, Karkat. The safest option. He’s not an idiot, but you doubt he’ll be able to grasp the advantage over you in a conversation. He is just too perpetually flustered and outraged to be cunning enough to embarrass you. Admittedly, the two of you would make a bit of an odd pair. Rose Lalonde, the smirking, eloquent, flighty broad, and Karkat, the shouting, cussing, transparent echo chamber of a troll. But that just makes it interesting, you’re sure.

You are doing this. You are making this TRANSPIRE, as your dear brother would put it. You approach the grumpy troll. He’s curled up in the corner of the red couch that he has wordlessly taken as his own territory, only reluctantly shared with others. He hasn’t even noticed your presence yet, his yellow-grey eyes glued to his book. You wish you had thought to captchalogue your book collection before Jade stole off with your planet, the mischievous little minx.

You sit next to him and give him a charming smile. “Hello, Karkat.”

He looks up at you from behind his massive book, clearly bewildered and suspicious.

“Why, good morning to you as well. Or should I say evening.” You suddenly wonder if you have something stuck in your teeth, or if your makeup is smeared, or if you’re hair is messy. But no, that’s silly. You meticulously checked and fixed all of that until you were the picture of perfection before you came here.

Nerves. Over something so trivial. Ridiculous.

“… What the fuck do you want?” he asks.

Finally, something to respond to. It would have been embarrassing to just be ignored, to be forced to continue talking and talking with nothing to go on.

“Such hostility!” Are you acting oddly? You almost sound like Terezi. Dial it back a little. “I merely wanted to have a little chat with you. Just to pass the time, considering how much of it we have.”

“Did you have a fight with Kanaya or something? Shit, that was rude as hell.” He’s already grimacing with regret over his question.

You don’t say anything for a moment, because you want to be careful with this, and also it really was. “… No, Kanaya and I are not currently on bad terms. Really, I just wanted to widen my social circle some. I wouldn’t want to stagnate, after all.”

He shifts uncomfortably. This whole conversation is nothing but pure discomfort. You should have done this over Pesterchum. Trollian. Whatever, you should have just done this online. Why didn’t you just do this online? You have clearly not thought this whole thing through. This will certainly teach you to never again enter a discussion without a battle plan on the ready.

“Sorry… What do you want to talk about?” He hands you the metaphorical olive branch, and you have no idea what to do with it. Such a simple, open ended question. You really did dive into this recklessly if you don’t even have an answer for such an obvious question.

“What are you reading?” you try.

He flushes, and then quickly hides his face behind his book. Ooh, you recognize that look from when your mother would tease you about researching her extensive collection of dubious literature.

“It’s a romance!” he barks defensively. “With, uh, fantasy and stuff.”

“And by ‘fantasy’ do you mean sultry rainbow drinkers and smoldering werewoofbeasts? And by ‘romance’—“

Karkat Vantas has shoved a pillow into your face, no doubt smearing your makeup and leaving behind an embarrassing little dark lipstick mark on the red fabric. In that moment, you know that you have his friendship. The beginnings of it, at least.

The pillow falls down into your lap and you are laughing, Karkat seems to be physically choking on his own embarrassment, and you grab the pillow to smack him in the arm with it.

“Your rudeness knows no bounds, Sir Vantas! I can feel my innocent maiden face flushing alight at your unseemliness—“ you gasp with laughter as Karkat ends up tearing huge gashes in the pillow with his claws when he tries to pull it away from you, feathers erupting. It makes a comically loud sound. Karkat is gaping at it.

“Oh, I suppose we will just have to alchemize a new one,” you say good-naturedly.

His reflexes kick in and he starts on one of his loud, explicit rants, seemingly in self defense just to stop his brain, you mean think pan, from overheating with mortification. It is truly captivating. He has a unique creativity for swearing and incredulous rhetoric that you could only ever hope to match one day. You teeter back and forth in your mind on the decision of whether you should try to wind him up more, or calm him down. Both options hold their own appeal. You decide to compromise with some gentle, already-fond teasing.

This sets the tone for the rest of your relationship.


End file.
